A Pirate's Life
by justanotherclassic
Summary: Hook's former crew reacts to Emma Swan. [Captain Swan]


They don't like her – Emma Swan.

It's a perfectly expected dislike. Though she no longer has a kingdom over which to rule, she is still a princess – her father still answering to his sometimes mocking, sometime affectionate moniker, Prince Charming. Instead of a crown, she brandishes a sheriff's star, aiming to keep the lawful peace of this once-cursed town. The amalgamation of these two things make her a ripe candidate to earn the ire of the pirate crew. Royalty and the law – they forsook these when they raised their crimson flag. While those are perfectly acceptable reasons for the pirate crew to dislike her, her station and profession are not exactly why.

Because though she is a princess and a sheriff, she is a better pirate than any one of them, for she's stolen something far more valuable than they ever could – their Captain.

They understand when Hook escorts the Savior and her family to Neverland. Though the missing lad is the son of the Princess Savior, he is also the grandson of Milah. Captain Hook spent centuries attempting to avenge his lost love. Naturally, he will do anything to protect what's left of her blood. The crew can accept that.

Besides, when he returns and they all get once again swept up in Pan's curse, he's still the pirate they know and respect. He leads them valiantly – well, as valiantly as a pirate can – throughout the Enchanted Forest, pillaging and plundering and proving that one doesn't need a ship to be a pirate. And when they unseat Blackbeard and get the ship, well, everything is golden. Yes, they are quite happy to crew under the infamous Captain Hook.

But then he abandons them at port without explanation, and later a curse strikes, sweeping everyone is back to that cursed town. Not that they remember that part, not at first. That's the problem with curses – they muddle the memory. So when the Captain rides back into town with the Savior, the crew is slightly thankful, because very few things are worse than being marooned in a cursed town with no memory. He can lead him away.

Except, he doesn't.

The crew takes that in stride too. They assume that once the ordeal with the Wicked Witch is over, they will leave. Captain Hook can outrun anything, but maybe he wants to be spared the effort. But the battle with the Wicked Witch bleeds into the winter of the Snow Queen and ice monsters. The Jolly Roger is gone, and though Captain Hook walks the streets of Storybrooke, he's gone as well, because that is not their Captain.

Their Captain wouldn't risk his life to fight alongside the heroes. Their Captain wouldn't spend his days researching in the library with the Dark One's woman. Their Captain wouldn't regularly dine with royalty.

And their Captain wouldn't court the Savior.

He'd do his best to bed her, mind you, and for a time they think that is Hook's goal – soil the Savior and then set sail.

Except his behavior indicates that he wants far more than to simply bed her. They shares meals together – breakfasts at the diner, picnics at the pier. They walk down the main street, fingers entwined and her chin resting on his shoulder. He takes her and her son sailing in a ship that he rents by the book. Well, most of the time, anyway. The crew even sees the Captain walking with his hooked arm around the Savior as she pushes a stroller holding the young prince, her infant brother. The scene is strangely domestic, and it pains the crew because Captain Hook looks so damn content with it all.

It's an abomination.

It's not that they don't want their Captain to be happy. It's just that the change in allegiance throws them. The crew doesn't quite understand how the many they once knew could go from denouncing royalty and the kingdom to willingly ensconcing himself with queens, princes, and princesses. It doesn't make sense to them.

Not that he tells them why, or acknowledges them in any way. He no longer converses with them, treating them as strangers instead of brothers in arms who sailed together for centuries. He actively avoids them when they cross at the docks, even as a few of them attempt to wave them over.

He smiles when he see the Savior, seeks her out even when she is amidst a crowd.

She does the same.

So it's easy for the pirate crew to hate Emma Swan, because before Killian Jones belonged to her, he belonged to them.

That man no longer exists.

That's what they tell themselves, that their Captain is gone.

Then he dies. Truly dies, none of that metaphorical bullshit they've been feeding themselves since the second curse broke and Hook took up with the Savior.

The story spreads quickly, all signs pointing to the Savior as the one to blame. She turned him into the Dark One. She drove the sword through his gut. She's the one who first took him away, and she's the one who made that loss finite.

If they didn't have reason to hate her before, they do now.

Until –

It's the evening after, the sun just beginning to sit, and the crew is crowded around the bar at the Rabbit Hole. Smee is huddled in the corner, a stein of beer in his hands, but he hasn't taken a drink in the hour since it was served to him. He hasn't said anything either. Every now and then, one of the men shares a story from the good old days at sea, one that is meant to be humorous. No one laughs.

Their Captain is dead.

They wonder what the heroes will do with the body. Captain Hook is – was – a sailor. He deserves a sailor's burial, his body turned over to the sea. Surely the Savior will honor that aspect of the man, but maybe not since she stripped away everything that he was before he met her.

Damn that woman to wherever she sent him.

One man says as much aloud, just the moment when she walks through the door.

It's a shock to see her, because in the time that she's been in Storybrooke, she's never said anything to them. Except that now she's here and instead of the bar, she's making a beeline straight to them.

"Hi," she says, her voice wavering. Emma Swan's eyes are rimmed red, her skin blotchy. She's wrapped her arms around herself, almost as if she's trying to hold herself together.

"What are you doing here, princess?" McNair, the man who damned her, asks as he takes a pull from his glass of rum, not bothering to meet his eyes.

"You used to be Killian's – Hook's – friends," she begins, sounding a little lost. She stops for a moment, trying to gather her words. " I know you all haven't really hung out or whatever pirates do in awhile, but I just wanted you guys to know I'm going to get him back."

"You're going to bring him back?" Smee speaks for the first time since they came to the bar. He was somehow the closest to Hook, despite their conflicting natures. Both losses of their Captain hit him the hardest.

"Yeah. I'm going to the Underworld to get him back." She sounds more determined now, confident, ignoring the fact that she just swore that she intended to bring back a dead man. "Anyway, I thought you all needed to know."

No one says anything more, and the Savior sways for a moment, back to being unsure of herself. She knows that she doesn't belong, so she doesn't linger much long. She stops before exiting the building, looks back at them, "Don't take my absence as an excuse to pillage and plunder, just so you know. I'll be back, and so will he."

Then as quickly as she appeared, she disappears.

They still don't like her. Probably won't ever will.

But they respect her a little more now.


End file.
